Roman’s boom and bust cycle cost Chelsea more trophies
SIR Alex Ferguson always spoke of how Roman Abramovich’s money changed football and he was right. Chelsea’s emergence as a power forced Ferguson into a rethink of everything he did at Manchester United.
Ferguson even began to tailor his players’ pre-season to increase the chances of a fast start simply because he knew Chelsea would be out of the blocks quickly.
But United back in the early years of this century always did one thing better than Chelsea. They always had the same manager.
Ferguson was so shocked to hear of Jose Mourinho’s first Stamford Bridge exit in September 2007 that he sent someone down the plane on the way home from a game in Lisbon to ask members of the media if it was actually true. Fergie admired Mourinho and knew his departure would weaken Chelsea.
And that was the start of a pattern at Stamford Bridge during the Abramovich era. For all that Chelsea grew under him, long-term managerial planning was never something Chelsea really attempted to get right.
Chelsea have won the Premier League five times in the 19 years of Abramovich. They have been fruitful times but I always suspected they could have done even better.
United have not been a force for most of Abramovich’s second decade. Arsenal fell from the summit long ago. Manchester City’s money arrived in 2008 but they didn’t immediately work out how to spend it. Liverpool only returned to genuine eminence once Jurgen Klopp arrived.
So against that background, Chelsea had the opportunity to present themselves as steadily and monotonously powerful but haven’t managed it.
Chelsea have won three leagues in the 15 years since first Mourinho left in 2007. There was a five-year gap between titles three and four and it will be five years this May since their last one, under Antonio Conte in 2017. The period of sustained dominance Ferguson feared never arrived and Chelsea’s league performance in the second Abramovich decade has been so erratic as to point to something wrong with the regime.
Between his arrival in 2003 and a second-place finish behind United in 2011, Chelsea were winning titles or coming pretty close to doing so. Since then it has been different.
Chelsea finished first in 2015 (Mourinho again) and 2017 but scattered around all that has been mediocrity and worse.
Chelsea have not actually been runners-up in the Premier League for almost 11 years and that is indicative of the boom-or-bust cycles that come with constant managerial change. Since 2011, Abramovich has continued to spend heavily on players but that has not managed to offset the effect of the presence of nine different managers.
Chelsea were 25 points short by the end of the 2011-2012 season, 14 points off it a year later and then four, 31, 30, 27, 33 and 19 points shy up until the present time. The only interruptions to that dismal sequence came in the two years they actually won it.
Chelsea managers have rarely worked free of interruption. For all that he has undoubtedly loved his football club, Abramovich has been unable to leave the mechanics of it alone and arguably that has cost him.
United, back in the day, had it right. Just as Liverpool and City do now. At the Etihad and at Anfield the first-team manager remains the most important and respected man in the building. They have been allowed to build. Not so at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea have been successful under Abramovich. He delivered the relevance and trophies the club’s supporters craved. They are the Champions League holders and supporters will continue to sing his name.
But buried under all that, often disguised by the volume of Russian wealth, there has always been something strange about the model and maybe now would be an apposite time to try a different way.
The only manager to have won the Premier League at Chelsea and still been in his job more than 12 months later is Mourinho. That is a simply startling fact but as he retreats into the shadows Abramovich leaves behind a man capable of constructing something sustainable.
Thomas Tuchel is a super coach and an admirable figurehead for Chelsea.
But he will not win the league this season so questions will doubtless be asked simply because that is what traditionally happens there.
As the club looks forward now into a new and very different future, it’s very much up to them which way they wish to go. Ian.Ladyman@dailymail.co.uk